Pandemic has struck sincerely harder on almost all the sectors. From business firms to restaurant outlets, every sector has faced some serious drawbacks on the basis of economy and popularity. The post-pandemic situation has strongly focused on the need to overcome economic downturns and recessions. The primary strategy for restaurants post-pandemic is to take suitable measures to attract more crowds and boost the economic state of the restaurant. Many restaurants and food outlets have shut down owing to the pandemic restrictions and covid-19 concerns.
Now, it's time for the restaurant owners to get back into the market by adopting some useful techniques to boost the reopening of restaurants and increase their economic turnover to a positive side.
• Increase Productivity
The higher the quality of your feed, the higher is the customer satisfaction rate. One must try to increase the staff and the restaurant's productivity to serve more and more customers. Owners should try to manage their staff properly and encourage them to perform more. They should try to speed up their entire process, which would ultimately lead to faster service, increased productivity, and efficient cooking methods. The higher levels of productivity will gain a lot of support from the customers and keep the functions of the restaurant running smoothly.
• Invest More
The days of traditional ways of shopping or eating are long gone. The market is full of competition with a large number of restaurants serving the same kind of food around the same area. Restaurants must try to adopt a more influential marketing strategy to thrive and outshine the competition. There is a need to invest more in-market advertising, promotions, and pamphlets. The newspaper adds magazine promotions, advertisements, and large flex boards, all of which encourage customers to visit the restaurant and taste delicious foods.
• Get Digital
Every phase of different working sectors is in a rapid growth stage. Many restaurants have learned the importance of incorporating modern methods and technology to boom the business. For example, using QR Codes with logo of your restaurant works as an essential marketing strategy. Using your QR code, one could easily get information about your restaurant, follow your restaurant on some manor sites, and make digital payments too! The concept of paying cash has become so outdated, and everyone prefers digital payments these days. Just a scan and you are ready to make the payment.
A Comprehensive Market Research
Although, you must have gone through comprehensive market research before setting up your hotel. Still, if you are reopening your hotel, you should again go through prior market research and be updated about the latest changes near your market place. This is mainly because of the rapid change in the scenario of the market place. You should always be updated about recent openings like cinema halls, malls, restaurants, etc. This will give an idea about the hot market in the area and the type of customers, therefore you can plan your market strategy accordingly.
Safety and Hygiene
Especially after the covid-19 crisis, people have become increasingly conscious of safety and hygiene. Thus, restaurants should follow all the safety guidelines before reopening in order to give assurance to customers. Other than that, following a proper WHO protocol is one of the most vital factors for your restaurant's success and quality standards. Restaurant owners should work upon the restaurants' safety and hygiene to attract more customers and follow social distancing norms. Get your cleaning team ready or book an appointment to get your restaurant completely sanitized and disinfected 2-4 days before reopening and than every weekday.
Takeout and Delivery Services
Recently, the outburst of covid-19 has made most of the population hesitant to enter or sit in the crowd owing to infection risks. Every restaurant should work upon their take-home services so that customers who are not yet comfortable to dine out can still enjoy restaurant food from their homes. Restaurant owners can either provide delivery services to their clients by hiring delivery staff, or they can make collaborations with official delivery sites like Zomato, Swiggy, Uber Eats, etc. This enables the customers to get one of their favorite foods readily available at their homes and increases the trust and crowd of the customers, generating more income.
Offers And Gift Cards
Every customer gets attracted to attractive offers and discounts given by the restaurants. Many restaurants give offers like order one get one free, meal combos, free coke, etc. Restaurant owners can also work by launching special days a week where customers get exclusive discounts and meals. This technique never fails; instead, it manages to attract more foodies. Restaurants can also sell gift cards to their customers and provide redemption codes to appeal to the customers and profit the restaurant owners.m
E-communication
Apart from making your custom QR Code, restaurants should try to be in touch with their customers via e-communication services like e-mails, messages, etc. For example, customers can be notified about the latest offers or new recipes and menus via e-mails. Text messages and push notifications can be used to keep the customers updated. The facility of feedback portals and customer care services can be highly effective in engaging the customers and promoting your restaurant. Even the use of social media handles to give ads on the private accounts of regular customers is also an ideal option.
Revamp and Upgrade
It is important to break the long monotony after the pandemic by launching and creating some new, delicious recipes for the foodies. Customers would never like to be disappointed by the same old menu after the months of lockdown. Restaurant managers should hire new chefs or revamp their menus to create more delicious and innovative recipes that might impress the customers a lot. Every restaurant should regularly update their culinary menus and cooking styles. Look for your food costs, combo offers, and customer reviews about particular dishes. Try to improve the dishes according to the customer's recommendations.
Train Your Team
The popularity of a restaurant is greatly dependent upon its food quality, management, and staff members. Restaurant managers can organize training drives for the staff members regarding new culinary practices, communication skills, cooking, and hygiene. You must train your staff based on WHO guidelines or private training sessions that could promote a positive staff environment, good customer-staff relationship, etc. The more skilled staff holds a good reputation for the restaurant by providing the best services and developing good customer relations.
Should you pace up your Restaurant Reopening?
Reopening of restaurants might sound an ideal option for some, while other owners might be increasingly delusional about the same decision. Therefore, it is important to keep proper track of the covid-19 situation in your area and decide your reopening date after that. Do not reopen the restaurants in case it is located in the area with higher covid-19 cases.
Also, pacing your restaurant reopening is not a good idea since it may lead to inconveniences and problems. It is better to keep things in a natural flow. Before reopening your restaurant, you must get it sanitized or disinfected for safety purposes. It would be best if you also undertook a pest control treatment at your restaurants, get your staff tested before calling them for work, and improve the hygiene standards of the place. Make sure you have made all the pre-preparations before reopening your restaurants because no customer would want to visit your restaurant unless they have clarity about the safety standards and quality.
Another critical aspect you must consider before restarting your restaurant is to promote its takeaway and delivery services. This is because most people will still not be comfortable to dine out due to pandemic fears, so improving the home delivery services and food takeout options serve as an ideal choice. Also, introducing no-contact delivery options could be another important feature to work upon.
Therefore, when you have made all the necessary preparations, you can reopen your restaurant devoid of any extra concerns or problems.
Conclusion
All these tips mainly focus on the reopening of restaurants. These tips are basically designed to improve and boom your restaurant business. ReopeningThe covid situation in the area should extremely guide the reopening of restaurants. Restaurant owners should make sure they follow all the important safety guidelines to attract a good crowd of customers.
Apoorva Hegde is a Content Marketer at MobStac.